CONTACT LIGHT: The Story of Apollo 11

Okay, all flight controllers gonna go for landing retro. Oh, I don't gel.

The 20th of 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of mankind's most treacherous journey when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first touched the lunar surface. Over half a billion people around the world, 20% of the Earth's population at the time, sat eagerly in front of their televisions as they watched the crew descend from the lunar module and take the most famous steps in history. The story of Apollo 11 is one of the most important events in the entire history of humanity. It's one that will be remembered for thousands of years to come.

But this brainy television footage only tells part of the story. The technological complexity of the mission, alongside a risk that very few people on the planet were willing to take, very few actually understand how difficult this mission really was and how many things could have—and almost did—go wrong. Apollo 11, its three crew members Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, on July 16th, 1969, they launched from Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. EST atop a Saturn V rocket, the most powerful machine ever built by humans.

When John F. Kennedy made his proclamation to go to the moon before the decade was out in 1962, this left NASA only seven years to conceptualize and create a rocket that could push humans to the moon. The end result was the Saturn V rocket. The behemoth stood at over 364 feet tall and weighed upwards of six and a half million pounds when fully fueled. It included multiple stages just as modern rockets do, but from this 111-meter machine, this is the only thing that would return to the Earth.

It's one thing to build a skyscraper; it's a whole different task trying to lift it off the ground, which is why it took over nearly eight million pounds of thrust in order to get the Saturn V into the sky. As of 2019, it remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever used by mankind.

The first stage burned from the rocket less than three minutes to get the rocket clear from the launch pad and into the sky. It then detaches and falls to the ocean from about 30 miles up. The second stage burn then begins and continues for another six minutes to push the astronauts into space. After that, the S-IVB third and final stage of the rocket burn begins and gets Apollo 11 into their correct orbit around the Earth.

One-and-a-half Earth orbits later, around 2 hours and 45 minutes after liftoff, the third stage of the Saturn V reignites for a second burn that lasts around 5 minutes, forcing Apollo 11 out of the Earth's gravity in an event called the translunar injection. The crew is now hurtling towards the moon at nearly 7 miles per second, but their job isn't done just yet.

The transposition and docking maneuver begins. The Apollo 11 spacecraft consisted of three main modules: the command and service module Columbia, where the astronauts would spend most of their journey, served as the main quarters for the astronauts. It was a place they could work and live, except it was only the size of an average car. There's a single button inside the command module that, once pressed, will essentially blast away the panels that were once used to protect the lunar module.

Once this happens, the command module uses small thrust rockets to separate the spacecraft. The command module pilot Michael Collins will then rotate 180 degrees and dock with the lunar module. The new joint spacecraft then separates from the third stage of the rocket. They're now in the configuration needed to enter lunar orbit. From sitting on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral to reconfiguring their docking situation in space, it's now being on course to the moon. The launch of Apollo 11 is concluded just three and a half hours after liftoff, and now we wait.

During their journey, Apollo 11 broadcast live footage from inside the cabin back to Earth for the entire world to see. Perhaps the most iconic television broadcasts of all time. In this small command module, with nothing but inches of aluminum protecting the crew from the emptiness of space, they showed the world what was possible and what was to come. But for now, for the next three days, they'll be silently drifting away.

75 hours into the mission, on July 19th, with Earth over two hundred six thousand miles away, Apollo 11 reaches the moon. As they're flying behind the far side of the moon, contact with Earth was lost. But also came the first lunar orbit insertion burn. For this to take place, the spacecraft would have to make yet another rotation, now flying engine first around the moon. A 357-second engine burn would place the spacecraft into their initial orbit. Now successfully orbiting the moon, real intentions of the mission begin.

Current space missions usually involve extreme precision, and Apollo 11 was no different, except in one way: rather than landing at a precise location on the moon, their objective was to just land safely in a rough area and hopefully live to tell the tale. The odds of landing, in the astronauts' own words, were about 50/50. Every previous Apollo mission led up to this moment. Apollo 8 was the first actual mission to the moon; however, they didn't land on the surface but were rather put into an elliptical orbit around the moon. Apollo 10 was essentially the same, but they went a bit further. Astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan entered the lunar module and reached an orbit of just over eight miles above the surface of the moon, the closest approach that any humans had ever made until that point. They could practically touch it.

These missions drew a line all the way from the surface of the Earth all the way to fifty thousand feet above the lunar surface. All Armstrong and Aldrin had to do was land from there and finish what the previous missions had laid out for them. At around a hundred hours and twelve minutes into the mission, the descent to the surface began. Armstrong and Aldrin loaded into the lunar module Eagle and separated from the command module.

One more orbit around the moon about an hour and a half later, and the descent engines fire, placing the lunar module into a lower orbit—a trajectory nearly identical to Apollo 10's. The lunar module had three different landing programs that would be cycled through out the landing process. They are in order P63, P64, and P66. Each of these had different purposes and had to be carefully executed.

First, P63 is run. This is the braking phase of the landing. It ignited the engine with the sole purpose of shedding horizontal velocity so it could essentially begin falling out of orbit. P63 lasts around the first eight-and-a-half minutes of landing burn. The first three minutes of that are flown with the lunar module windows facing down. This allowed Armstrong to view landmarks on the surface and make a note of what time they were passing them. This turned out to be truthful; he noted that they were passing landmarks on the surface around three seconds early. This seems very small and almost insignificant, but it meant that they would land nearly three miles away from the intended landing spot and almost into an area unplanned for.

After these first three minutes and the physician checks had taken place, the lunar module was then rolled 180 degrees so the windows were now facing away from the surface. This rotation allowed the landing radar on the module to actually see the surface of the moon, allowing them to now have constant updates on their velocity and altitude relative to the surface. Around five minutes and 15 seconds in, the PDI, a massive problem, exposed itself. Either Armstrong, Aldrin, or Collins actually had any idea what this alarm meant, but a few people on the ground did.

A 1202 essentially meant that the guidance computer aboard the lunar module was being overloaded, being asked to perform too many actions at once. With only 72 kilobytes of memory, it didn't exactly have all the storage in the world. When it was asked to perform another task, there was no memory left to do it. The solution to this meant rebooting the systems while they were trying to land, but luckily this didn't jeopardize the mission.

Around 8 minutes and 30 seconds in, the PDI-P 64 is initiated. The lunar module pitches up and begins essentially gliding sideways above the moon. Armstrong and Aldrin can now see outside the cabin again and could visualize the surface where they would land. The approach phase has begun. Also in P 64 contains the landing point designator, or LPD. This shows where the lunar module will land on the surface and allows Armstrong to change that point if he feels necessary, and that's a really good thing. The LPD was sending the lunar module into an area unsuitable for landing, craters, fields full of boulders.

P66, the final phase of the landing, begins. No longer were the flight computers controlling the lunar module; controls switch to manual, putting Armstrong in control. The rest, well, it speaks for itself.

"Pretty beat down. Two and a half. Picking up some best city. Pete's doing a half down. Fake shadow or forward, or forward. Rip into the right little thang and a half. Shutting back up over two feet. Hey."

[Applause]

"I'm back. Right, okay, engine stop. A PA had a defense up control both autos. He's been in command override off and then arm off. 413 is in this in tan. Goldy base here, the eagle has landed. Rocket wings. Tranquility, we copy on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again, thanks a lot. Thank you, you're looking good here."

Okay, we're gonna be busy for a minute.

102 hours, 45 minutes, and 39 seconds after liftoff, the lunar module touched down in the Sea of Tranquility. They used almost every last bit of fuel trying to find a landing spot that was suitable. It's like driving a car with a gas gauge on empty; you could run out at any second. No one knows exactly how much, but estimates say there were 15 seconds of fuel left. The flight plan called for the first steps on the surface to begin after a four-hour rest period, but considering they had just landed on the moon for the first time ever, sleep wasn't exactly their first priority. The EVA was moved ahead, and they began suiting up 100 hours and 7 minutes into their mission.

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin follows him outside nearly 20 minutes later. Oh, good daughter! For the next two hours, the moon's population for the first time in its existence changed from zero to two. They spent their time collecting samples of rocks and dirt, taking photographs of everything in sight, which included both astronauts. Scientific experiments were also left on the surface. A seismometer was left right outside the landing area, which would be used to measure moonquakes. A retroreflector was also left and is used to measure the exact distance between the Earth and the moon. The TV camera left on the surface allowed everyone to see things firsthand.

In that moment, despite all the conflict on Earth, despite social status, despite wealth or intelligence, every person was one. We had made our mark on another world, and this signified that. But before you knew it, both men returned to the lunar module at a hundred and eleven hours, 37 minutes, and 30 seconds into the mission. The last footstep on the moon was taken. And now, sleep.

After spending less than 24 hours on the surface, two men changed the world forever. They were now set to be reunited with the command module and sent on their way home. But this was yet another, even more dangerous task. The Saturn V on liftoff had five engines on launch, but Eagle had one. It's the one and only way to get back into orbit; it's the only way home. This also couldn't be tested on Earth in the same conditions that it would be in on the moon. The first and only firing of the ascent engine came during the real thing. The lunar module only had enough oxygen for two men for two days. If something had broken during landing or if the engine didn't ignite for any reason, there was zero chance for recovery.

"Roger, ever been number one on the runway? 9, 8, 7, 6. Workstation, RSS feed."

Luckily, fate was on our side.

128 hours in, Columbia and Eagle are reunited successfully. It's time to head home. Everything went according to plan. All that's left is to make it back alive. The trans-earth injection maneuver begins; a two-minute and thirty-second burn will place the rejoined Apollo 11 spacecraft into a trajectory to bring the crew back to Earth.

"Right here there to provide to the moon BAM. Look to you, Temple, or easy. I like to say that that has not been the case. A large rocket engine on the aft end of our service module—what that perform flawlessly or we would have been stranded in lunar orbit. The parachute up above my head. I've worked perfectly. Tomorrow, and we will bomb it into the ocean."

Only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of people, the American workmen who put these pieces of machinery together at the factory. "Oh, you see it? The three of us. But beneath the German, I doubt the brothers. This has been far more than three men on a voyage to the moon. More still than the efforts of the government and industry. Name more, even than the efforts of one nation. We feel the disbanded nimble of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown."

"To all those Americans who built those base friends who did the construction, design the temp and put their heart and all their abilities infidel crap to those people tonight we on the ninth day, 195 hours in it's time for re-entry."

Moving at over 36,000 feet per second, the spacecraft is literally compressing the atmosphere so tightly that the bottom of the command module is experiencing temperatures as hot as the surface of the Sun. Inside, our three astronauts hoping to make it back safe, and then nothing. Due to the sheer heat of reentry, ionized air forms around the spacecraft, causing all radio communications to be lost for the next few minutes. This blackout will be one of the most stress-inducing moments of the entire mission. You can't track them; you can't speak to them. All you can do is wait. But if you wait long enough, things might not turn out so bad.

Apollo 11 is simply the mission of carrying men to the moon, landing them there, and bringing them safely back. They did just that. The Apollo astronauts are without a doubt some of the most courageous humans to have ever existed. To think about these men, all of which who had families, kids, lives that they left behind to go on quite literally the loneliest mission in the past million years. They left behind everything they knew, including the only planet they've ever known, the only place in the known universe that's habitable.

Command module pilot Michael Collins was perhaps the loneliest man in existence during this mission. Every lunar orbit, as he passed behind the dark side of the moon, all communications were lost with the ground and with the men on the surface. For those 47 minutes, he had himself, and only himself, to keep him company. No human has ever experienced this level of solitude in the history of mankind. But once they made it home, they weren't so lonely anymore; they were superstars.

Them complete and utter solitude. It's a global recognition almost overnight. This image, although it seems just like another moon photograph, is different. This photo contains every single person alive in existence at the time, except for one: Michael Collins, orbiting the moon. That's everyone right there—a snapshot of humanity from our nearest neighbor. And although it has been over 50 years since that historic day, it's not the end of our journey. We came in peace for all mankind, and without a doubt, we will return.

This video was sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. The Great Courses Plus is an on-demand video learning service that brings you the highest quality content from some of the smartest people on the planet, from Ivy League professors to experts from places like National Geographic. They're the best place to go to learn pretty much anything you want, whether you want to understand the quantum world or figure out how the brain works. The Great Courses Plus has something for everyone.

During the making of this video, I watched their lecture on rocket science and learned things about the Saturn V that I hadn't even thought of before. The best thing is you're learning what you want to learn, not where you're being forced to learn. There's no homework; there's no test. It's just you doing what you want, and that's the best part. With over 11,000 video lectures available, you could learn something new every day for the next 30 years with new content each and every month. It's almost guaranteed you'll find something you like.

If you want to test it out and see things for yourself, check out TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/aperture, and you can start watching for free in as little as 10 minutes. If you enjoy it, there's options to subscribe for as little as $15 a month. You'll not only be helping yourself, but you'll also be supporting my channel at the same time.